Fiction Plane At Monto Rats
It must be a mark of a decent band if they’re able to get your attention, despite being a step away from your regular music tastes. I’ve always tried to be fairly open-minded when it comes to music as there’s few things that annoy me more than closeted viewpoints, but on the whole around three-quarters of what I currently listen to is some variation of ‘metal’. Fiction Plane then are a bit of an out of character choice, falling into what can only described as a generic ‘non-heavy, slightly leftfield rock’ category (I should point out that I also hate having to pigeon-hole under convoluted genre names but it seems a lot of people can only survive that way so…).
When I was first introduced to current FP album Left Side Of The Brain I was drawn in pretty quickly. It’s actually nice to find a band that, whilst not blowing you away on a particularly technical level, are on an even keel of quality with their own sound and well-formed production, tunes like Death Machine and Anyone displaying a nice mix of melodic bass lines and semi-ambient guitar waves backing some powerful vocals. Put them on stage and you can add ‘a good sense of live performance’ to the list of positives. It’s energetic, well-paced and nicely intimate in the small venue, and it’s clear that the band have grown a dedicated fan base with a few almost ‘in-jokes’ between the regulars and the guys on stage. Arguably a large part of that is down to charismatic singer Joe Sumner, son of Sting, with his family links coming across clearly in a well-formed and powerful vocal performance and some fine bass lines. Not at all putting the other two members down as they more than do their part in the overall sound, but looking around the (predominantly female) crowd it’s interesting to see that the heads are all pointing toward his corner of the stage rather than straight ahead. It’s also one of the calmest crowds I’ve been in for a long time, but it’s a nice change of pace to be able to just enjoy the music and only worry about getting nudged with a huge handbag, rather than being shoved into the armpit of a bearded Slayer fan.
So, lesson of the day - any time you get hold of an unknown band’s CD, always give it a try. You never know when you might find something you’ll be listening to for months to come.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:10pm
[...] Dagblad (dutch) : Fiction Plane staat tevreden op eigen benen The Daily Rock.com: Fiction Plane At Monto Rats Bandidge: Fiction Plane No Nonsense Rock Associated Content.com: Interview with Pete [...]
April 1st, 2008 at 8:12am
Check out the interview we did with Joe Sumner of Fiction Plane - before the Monto Water Rats gig:
http://backstagepass.seatwaveblogs.com/2008/04/interview_fiction_plane_1.php